[candidate-development] some thoughts on CDLC memo

[DvEngland at aol.com]

Hi Ralph,
 
Ideally, we would like to assemble all 477 of Nader's voters in a room and  
ask, "now what do you want to do?" but we can't do that.  Since we had a  
secret ballot, it would be impossible to determine who voted for whom.   John Walsh 
is the only Nader supporter I know; perhaps he knows others and we  could 
start there, but it would be a time-consuming process.
 
Your suggestion that we ask the candidates who have withdrawn to get  
involved has a logistical problem.  We can't get them to respond to  formally release 
their delegates.  They're on to other things, and appear  not be the least 
interested in our problems.
 
Once the convention is over, we need to revisit the plan.  The idea of  
giving candidates the power to direct how delegates should vote after the  
candidate withdraws clearly hasn't worked.  The candidates don't understand  it and 
once they withdraw they aren't interested.  Even party members and  delegates 
don't understand it well.
 
Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Dave
 
 
In a message dated 03/31/08 10:05:20 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
rwaltongrp at yahoo.com writes:

Grace  & Dave, 

I'm not sure which of you framed the original idea  in
this argument but it occurs to me that an option for
implementing the  spirit of IRV in a representative
form could be to recruit delegates who  clam to have
voted for the withdrawn candidates in  approximate
proportion to their turnout in the primary  election
results.  When they got to the convention they would
have  to make their individual judgments of second
choice among the then  available options (there could
even be some new options).  I would buy  into either
having a withdrawn candidate listing specific people
as  delegates with instructions to vote on the first
ballot for another  candidate still running or having
the withdrawn candidate instruct us to  select
delegates from the list if the successor candidate.  I
am  honoring a candidates power to throw his or her
support to another  candidate in an organized manner
just because it seams to be such an  established
political maneuver not necessarily because it is or is
not  democratic.  The thought of trying to recruit the
substantial number  of party members who voted
"write-in" gets kind of "interesting".   There would be
in a sample of party members who wrote in a larger
number  who would have written in Jesse Johnson than
the voters which we assume  were not all party members.
Non party members may have been likely to have  listed
Kusinisch or obama or Kermitt.  So trying this is not
exact  science but may get some of the likely suspects.
Again when they get to the  convention they will have
to select from the options then left on the  table, but
if selected may do something representative.   

- Ralph walton
--- Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com  wrote:

> Dave - I am sorry for the half-baked quality of  this
> response but I have 
> nothad time to think this through  particularly.  
> Given the short time line, here 
> are some  thoughts on the proposal to apportion votes
> whose preference is not  
> now a candidate:
> 
> I still need to do more research  but here is the
> problem with this proposal
> > from the  position of a party that has put IRV
> front and center...
>  >
> >  Say we have six options - if we do this as a
>  blind formula.
> >
> >  People go vote
>  >
> >  Option 1 gets X votes
> >  Option 2 gets  Y votes
> >  Option 3 gets Z votes
> >  Option 4  gets A votes
> >  Option 5 gets B votes
> >   Option 6 gets C votes
> >
> >  In our Massachusetts  voting system, we don't rank
> so if Option 5 gets
> > removed,  which other option gets their votes?  We
> don't know who the  folks
> > who voted for Option 5 would have voted for. 
> Given  that we don't know, we
> > can still assume that it is unlikely that  everyone
> who voted for Option 5
> > would have all voted for,  say, Option 4 or any
> other option - right?  In
> > fact  if we know nothing at all (and we don't
> re-ballot) then don't we  have
> > to assume that our pool of all voters are more
> like  each other than
> > different politically?  Don't we have  to
> distribute the votes that went to
> > Option 5 along the  same distribution as all the
> other votes cast?
> >
>  >  In reality, there may in fact be information in
> the "blank"  ballots, since
> > most "blank" ballots are simply not  counted
> because the machine could not
> > count them (these  are not being counted at all). 
> second, there is some
> >  information in the "write-ins" which I suspect the
> Secretary of  the
> > Commonwealth has to give us since it is in our
>  delegate selection
> > plan which htey accepted- but they did  not.
> >
> >  However, we don't have that  information.
> >
> >  What we do know is that everyone  who voted for
> Brown, Ball & Nader had the
> > options  equally to choose: Swift, Mesplay,
> McKinney, No Preference or  to
> > write someone in.  All we know is that they did
>  not choose those options.
> > We cannot assume that any one of those  options
> would have been those 
> voters'
> > second  choice (if we knew that then we would not
> believe in nor fight  for
> > IRV).
> >
> >  IF No Preference were  not an option on the
> ballot, you could argue that
> >  assigning those who voted for B,B or N to No
> Preference was not  unfairly
> > advantaging or disadvantaging any other option. 
>  However, on our ballot No
> > Preference actually ran as a candidate  against all
> other candidates (and 
> did
> > pretty  well actually).  So how can you give No
> Preference the huge  
> advantage
> > of getting all votes that went to those who  now
> are not in the race?
> >
> >  And I guess  the same argument could apply as to
> why write-ins as a group 
>  don't go
> > to No Preference?
> >
> > What I think  this means is that assigning the
> votes that went to those who 
>  are not now running in
> > any way except proportionally is both  questionable
> math-logic and not
> > legally  even-handed.
> >
> >  Someone tell me why I am wrong  here?  Love, Grace
> PS. one advantage of handling the  apportionment this
> way is that the 
> Secretary of the  commonwealth cannot object since it
> is how the Mass Democrats  do:
> "If a presidential candidate is no longer a
> candidate at  the time of 
> selection of the at-large
> delegates, then those  at-large slots that would have
> been allocated to the 
>  candidate will be
> proportionally divided among the remaining
>  preferences entitled to an 
> allocation. (Rule
> 10.C.)"
>  
> 
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